The Book of Awesome is...not quite.

This afternoon I sat outside in the sunshine and read The Book of Awesome by Neil Pasricha. Of note, Neil was a writer at Golden Words during a good chunk of my years at Queen's, so it is fairly likely he was already responsible for making me chuckle and smile a few times. Neil's book came from his blog/website: 1000 Awesome Things which features one 'awesome' thing each weekday counting back from 1000 to #1. This site launched in June 2008, and will finish on April 20/2012 if all stays on schedule. The blog has been tremendously popular and won awards for celebrating the little things in life. Examples of these include: finding money in an old jacket, having time on the meter when you pull into a parking spot, the smell of bakeries and so forth. Nothing substantial really, but just a nice solid boost of optimism that people like me can definitely use every so often (I may be accused of pessimism by more than one person, and I think I'd probably be guilty some of the time).

The book is simply a collection of some of those awesome things, and is a very easy read, as I finished the nearly 400 pages in an afternoon. While it's very enjoyable and results in laughs and smiles, it's not quite 'Awesome', but definitely 'Rather Enjoyable' It would make a good bathroom book, to have for guests and yourself, to peruse at your leisure.

I won't claim that it's life changing, but I was at the library the day after the election last week, and I thought I needed something 'awesome' to counter the rather non-awesome results. I recommend it to anyone this summer as a good light beach/cottage/vacation book, or for the pessimist/optimist of your friends.